The reason Google pulled out of the Yahoo advertising deal ... they were 3 hours away from being charged as a monopoly.

"We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day. We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement.

. . . It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly."6 Comments

It seemed to me that the deal was just going to create a larger online ad market. Does that give ad buyers or publishers fewer choices? Not really. And since Yahoo, one of Googles main competitors, was going to be the major beneficiary of the agreement, how could it be considered anti-competitive? Sure, Google is a behemoth, but its not a monopoly or cartel. Its still possible to have a viable online business without relying on any Google services or even traffic. Its probably not the best way to go, but its possible...and that kind of hurts the accusations of monopoly in my opinion.If the government knew anything about running a business, they wouldnt be operating with a close to $1 trillion annual deficit.